A year ago Slobodan Lang (1945-2016) passed away, but his work has enormous currency. With his passing the ECPD lost one of its most inspiring collaborators and the region lost one of its most prominent sons. He was professor of social medicine at the University of Zagreb and a well recognised humanitarian activist. in 1993 he participated in the operations White Road for Nova Bila and Silver Bosnia, which has been named as the first joint Muslim - Christian humanitarian operation in history. Fearful of the growing risks to civilian populations which he saw as being on the rise, he proposed that to maintain peace first and foremost public health and human rights must be re-enforced. Today his theory of the Challenge of Goodness has great application throughout his world and in the rest. He supported the ECPD’s work in the field of human security promotion in the Balkans and participated in its project in Croatia, Kosovo and Montenegro. Some of the most vivid recollections of Slobodan are in the background work of the penning of the Skopje Declaration: public health, peace and human rights, our times together on Brijuni Island, in Kosovo and in Belgrade. In Kosovo environmental destruction, growing poverty, terrorism and disease were discussed and the participants called for the adoption of a declaration that would reaffirm the principles of human security for the Balkan region. On Brijuni a final declaration resulted. Through the influence of Slobodan Lang the ECPD has strengthened its approach to public health and health diplomacy.